The interesting story about the upcoming release of Blackberry PlayBook on Theage prompts me to read from the beginning till the end.

The video at the top of Theage article gives a clear picture of the appearances and performance of the new device. In this clip, Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive of Research in Motions, confirms that this innovative media device is ‘the world’s first professional tablet’. He also adds that ‘it’s ultra-mobile and ultra-thin’ . These statements lead to two questions. First, what are the professional characteristics of the device? Second, what benefits can the utility, performance, and portability of the device bring to users?

An article on News Live provides a clear demonstration on the professional feature of this device. Specifically, compared to Apple’siPad, Blackberry’s PlayBook can run successfully on Adobe’s Flash. PlayBook also offers micro-USB ports and micro HDMI.

Alexander Grundner’s article on eHomeupgrade has a deeper look on the mobility and portability of the device. Grundner states that the tablet can connect to a BlackBerry handset to manipulate and sync data between the two devices. According to the article, PlayBook has 7-inch high resolution screen with a 1024×600 WSVGA capacitive touchscreen, multi-touch gesture support, HDMI-out, 1080p HD video playback, 802.11n Wi-Fi (3G/4G future), dual-core 1Ghz processor, 1GB of RAM, and dual HD cameras (3MP front, 5MP rear) with support for 1080p HD video recording.

I want to start this week’s entry by telling you three interesting stories about the mobile phones that I have been using. The first story, i could name it, the ‘brick’ story. I still remember the first time I used cell phone. My dad gave it to me as a birthday present. It was a Nokia; very simple, all black, with small screen. All what I can do with this ‘machine’ is make phone calls and text messages. But as any other high-tech hungers, I stored the ‘brick’ Nokia in my little box, stopped using it, and grabbed a new sexy Motorola. It was great phone; extremely slim, heaps of applications like taking photos, shooting videos, and music. The cell phone stories went different since I said goodbye to my lovely Motorola and having a new smartphone Blackberry.

I was amazed by this new tool. Especially, a multi-tasking person like me, I found it very applicable. With the Blackberry, I can go online at any time to check email from my five accounts, read latest news, go to Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and Youtube.

I will stop my mobile phone story here to think about how new technologies have been changing journalists‘ practices and news production. Clearly, in recent years, the booming of new technologies and web 2.0 tools has been shaping how journalists act and how news is produced. Journalists now have many choices in gathering sources and telling story. Let’s think about journalist practices in related to this week’s interesting coverage about a new attempt of Skype. This online tool which will extend videoconferencing up to ten users. Clearly, journalists from different places can hold a conference at the same time though this new Skype version. This is a precise evidence of how new media impacts on news production.